Three gold-trimmed rectangular boxes, each open at the hinge to display a mirrored lining. Two of them have inscriptions reading 'Made of the Mulberry Tree planted by Shakespeare'. The central box has the inscription "This Wood was part of the Mulberry Tree planted by Shakespeare."

Three mulberry boxes

Manner of Alexander James Strachan (1774-1850), for Rundell, Bridge & Rundell

1816

Mulberry wood

RCINs 43894, 43895 and 45896

Image credit: Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2021

In 1756, the Reverend Francis Gastrell felled a mulberry tree in Shakespeare's former garden, kickstarting a trade in wooden 'relics' that would last for over a century.

These ornate toothpick boxes claim to be ‘made of the mulberry tree planted by Shakespeare’ at New Place, Stratford-upon-Avon, via an inscription that doubles as a guarantee of authenticity.

Though 'mulberry relics' did a brisk trade in the second half of the eighteenth century, these are the only surviving examples acquired by the royal family. They were commissioned as a set of seven in 1816, the year of the bicentenary of Shakespeare's death, by the Prince Regent (later George IV).

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